In various medical areas it is sometimes necessary to perform measurements and surveillance during long periods of time. Examples of such medical areas could be neurology, cardiology, telemedicine, long-term nursing and home nursing. During such long-term measurements, which typically last for days, the patient must at all time be connected to the measuring equipment in order for a continuous measurement to occur.
Furthermore, in most cases such measurements must be supervised by qualified personnel in order to prevent interruptions in the measurements and to check that the condition of the patient does not worsen. The latter is very important since measurements of the kind mentioned above often are included in treatment as follow-up examinations or in investigations for establishing a diagnosis. Thus, it is common that the person responsible for correctly carrying out the measurements is a doctor.
These long term measurements must therefore be carried out using ambulatory measurement equipment, since the patient can hardly be expected to remain in bed during the long periods required for obtaining a continuous series of measurements. Further, the measuring equipment must be located at a hospital in order to there be supervised by a doctor in charge.
This is of course expensive for the payer of the hospital care and not particularly comfortable for the patient who cannot leave the hospital despite the fact that he/she is not in any need of hospitalization at the movement.